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Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection
Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection
Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection
Ebook66 pages1 hour

Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection

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About this ebook

The author of bestselling psychology classics He, She, and We, brings together teachings from medieval alchemy, Jungian psychology, early Christianity, and myth to explore projection, loneliness, fundamentalism, and the spiritual dimensions of psychology.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherKoa Books
Release dateMar 4, 2015
ISBN9781935646006
Inner Gold: Understanding Psychological Projection

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Really good book... especially if you are a mentor or aspire to be. To me the attitude towards projection feels right and I think it is an excellent metaphor... it resonates! I read this book a few times with some fellow therapists and I have also used it as sort of a devotional to remind me of the importance of handling matters of the Soul like gold.

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The start is good, the rest is bogus, kind of fiction and authors own limited views, this book is a waste of time, not very well explained, all he talks about himself.

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Inner Gold - Arnie Kotler

CHAPTER ONE

Projecting Your Gold

My first analyst, Fritz Kunkel, said that there are three ways to learn psychology: Read Greek mythology, read Jung, and watch. Watching is best. I learn so much from watching, and one of the things I observe most carefully is the exchange of inner, alchemical gold. Inner gold is the highest value in the human psyche. It is our soul, the Self, the innermost part of our being. It is us at our best, our twenty-four-karat gift to ourselves. Everyone has inner gold. It isn’t created, but it does have to be discovered. When I speak about gold this way, I am also speaking about God. These are two ways to describe the mystery.

When we awaken to a new possibility in our lives, we often see it first in another person. A part of us that has been hidden is about to emerge, but it doesn’t go in a straight line from our unconscious to becoming conscious. It travels by way of an intermediary, a host. We project our gold onto someone, and suddenly we’re consumed with that person. The first inkling of this is when the other person appears to be so luminous that he (or she) glows in the dark. That’s a sure sign that something is changing in us and we are projecting our gold onto the other person.

When we observe the things we attribute to the other person, we see our own depth and meaning. Our gold goes first from us to them. Eventually it will come back to us. Projecting our inner gold offers us the best chance for an advance in consciousness.

The Medieval Mind

In the Middle Ages, the work of alchemy was to produce gold from base metals. There were charlatans trying to make actual gold, but the best alchemists were those working with the gold of the spirit.

Alchemy comes from a time when the medieval mind was at its highest flowering. In medieval times, people did not divide reality into inner and outer or even acknowledge a difference between the two. For them, inside and outside were the same. To accomplish all that we have today, we’ve had to split the world in two. We couldn’t be this competitive with a medieval mind. But the price we pay for our accomplishments is loneliness and an inability to love. When we’re in love, we are our beloved. I spent many years trying to help people differentiate between inner and outer: You are you, and I am I. Your husband is your husband. We have not yet completed the transition to the modern mind. Many psychological problems are a failure to differentiate between out there and in here.

According to the teachings of India, the external world is maya, illusion. It is considered illusory because it is actually within, not out there. We see only the ten thousand things that we project. In ancient China, Lao Tzu dreamed of a butterfly, and for the rest of his life he didn’t know whether he had dreamed the butterfly or the butterfly had dreamed him.

In the West, gold is the symbol of the Self, while in the East, the symbol of our inner divinity is the diamond. In their interior meanings, they are the same, but the images are different. Diamonds are the hardest matter on earth—unearthly, celestial, and impersonal. Gold is much softer, a matter of relationship, the Self as related. I think we’re lucky to have gold to cope with.

The Glow in Tour Eyes

When we see that we have given our spiritual gold to someone to hold for us, there are several ways we might respond. We could go to him or her and say, The meaning of my life has suddenly appeared in the glow in your eyes. May I tell you about it? This is another way of saying, I have given you my inner gold. Will you carry it for me for a while? But we rarely say and do things that directly. Instead, we stand across the room, turn our back on him, and feel totally frightened, stumbling and carrying on in odd ways. We meet at the coffee pot during the morning break at work and banter with each other, speaking all kinds of nonsense. We joke and laugh, and an animated play goes on. Then, when we head back to work, we feel energized and brightened for the day. It was not the coffee. It

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